Andrew Bird in the Valleys of the Young

Last weekend Kristina and I drove down to St. Louis to see Andrew Bird perform at the Pageant.  What can I say?  The man is astounding live.  Kristina was initially lukewarm on going, only buying me tickets cause it was my birthday--but if anything she loved the show even more than me.  In an Indie and Pop music world so filled with rank amateurs, either proud of their "raw" lack of talent or auto-tuned to death--in our "Post-Skills" moment wherein mere novelty is privileged over technical ability--it is so refreshing to listen to a genuine world-class musician, an actual adult, who sounds better live than any studio-tinkering ever could, and what's more makes it sound easy. 

That adulthood of Andrew Bird in particular is a core part of his appeal for me--I first discovered him once I had entered my late-20s, and I found that the music I was listening to as an undergrad didn't quite cut it anymore, e.g. hearing Jimmy Eat World sing about the passion of turning "23" really resonated when I was, well, 23, but it didn't particularly help me with whatever I was going through when I was 27, to say the least.   However, hearing Andrew Bird slur "Souverian" into "So very young/were we" is the sound of someone who really does know what it's like to feel your youth slip away--and hearing him sing mournfully "still my lover won't return to me" is to hear the sound of a man who knows what it is to pine for a lost love not merely for days, weeks, or even an entire year (*gasp!*) like some High School romance, but for veritable years.

Simply put, Andrew Bird sounded like someone who knew, just knew, and he began my process of re-orientating myself towards artists who not only recorded in their 30s, but sang about what it feels like to be in your 30s.

Of course, Andrew Bird has now entered his 40s, and the question hanging over my head as we drove down to Missouri was whether his music had kept up with his age, if he could still write songs that resonated with my rapidly increasing years, or if he had officially transitioned into legacy status, largely just touring behind the "hits."

I needn't have worried.  The penultimate track to his latest album is "Valleys of the Young."

Background: Andrew Bird got married in 2010, and he and his wife just recently had their first child--and it is that anxiety, wonder, and terror about becoming a parent at last, and thus finally, formally, leaving behind "The Valleys of the Young" for good, that is the theme of this song.  With my own impending nuptials next month and the very real possibility that I will be starting a family reasonably soon as well, this song could not have hit me at a harder moment.

Part of what makes the song so aching is how uncharacteristically straight-forward it is for Bird--for a guy who normally prefers more playful lyrics like "This is sure to misspell disaster" or "Imitosis"  or "Fake Palindromes", it is rather staggering to hear him belt this rather blunt summation of parenthood: "your friends will become strange to you/Just as you will become strange to them/You'll live across a great divide". This is a man facing fatherhood with eyes wide-open, refusing to hide behind precious lyrics. "From their cradle until our grave," he repeats, "is it selfish or is it brave," and it's a good question.

Also: Bird, who once sang "Fiery Crash" to express his superstition that if he envisions the plane crashing, the plane won't crash, does the same now with parenthood--"Now you're going on 64/Driving down 65, to the hospital/To see if your adult son will survive or not/After taking those pills in the parking lot".  I pray that this isn't prophecy for him.

I'm sure there are plenty of songs about becoming parents, but I can scarcely think of another that does it so unsentimentally yet still so passionately and movingly.  Once again, Bird has his fingers on the pulse of every age I look forward to, like so few artists even know how to do anymore.  I suspect one day I will mourn him the same way so many of my peers did Prince this past week.